The dawn of the next day was met by a lot of grunts of disapproval from the millions of individuals who had drunk themselves to sleep the night before.
They woke up woozily, and as the memories of the day before began to flood back into their minds, there were quite a few who looked up to a.s.sure themselves that they had not dreamed up the coronation of the G.o.dking.
Sure enough, the ma.s.sive throne was still present, along with the pathways in the air from 10 directions all over the continent.
It was empty, right now, but just its image was enough to make them remember exactly everything that had happened. They got up and began to collect their belongings, while looking around with the hope that breakfast might appear magically just like all the food that had been teleported in front of them yesterday.
Sadly, it did not seem like that would be the case, and with slightly disappointed expressions, they began to look around, wondering just how they were supposed to get home.
It was at this point that they saw that all around the area in which they had gathered, platforms had been set up on where the tell-tale signs of teleportation formations could be seen.
There were also large boards above each of these platforms, and on each was written a major location on the continent.
Finding that their route to home was waiting for them, they once again applauded the G.o.dking"s thoughtfulness and began to travel towards the one that would take them nearest to their home.
It was only after nearing the platforms that they found that they had been wrong - the G.o.dking had thought of everything, as there was breakfast arranged neatly on tables which were being steadily depleted and replenished as the seconds went by.
With glee, those that had walked for quite a long distance from where they had gotten up immediately grabbed plates and began to serve themselves, and that was when they saw, in the clear light of the morning, that they had been right on the day before - the food really was s.h.i.+ning, and for the life of them, they could not understand why.
There were many chefs in the crowd, who tried to find out any special ingredients that might have been added to achieve this effect. They could be seen slowly breaking down the food in their mouth and rolling it around with the hope that they might identify something, but try as they might, there was nothing that they could tell, except that it tasted better than anything they had ever cooked in their life.
Resolving to find out just which chefs had been employed by the king to undertake this momentous task of feeding the entire continent, the people began to leave, and slowly, the central area of Angaria began to become empty.
Just before entering the teleportation formation, almost each and everyone once again looked up at the throne and bowed, as if thanking their G.o.dking for the perfect night which would be sung about by bards for centuries.
They had no idea that the one they were bowing to was still in a drunken stupor, and had just gotten up before starting to curse the sun for giving him the headache that now filled his mind as he had been foolish enough to look at it right after opening his eyes.
Shaking his head, Daneel yawned once and saw that Faxul was still fast asleep. As there had never been an occasion to sleep near his friend before, he hadn"t known that the man had a very loud snore, and after hearing it for a few seconds, he wondered how he had fallen asleep in this din.
Remembering the upgrades, though, he figured out that the system must once again have taken the step to block it out, and with that thought, he also asked it to cure his drunkenness.
A second later, he was bright awake, and after conjuring up a gla.s.s of juice, Daneel felt ready to tackle the world.
The events of the night before came back to him slowly, and when he remembered the last thing he had said before falling asleep, he grit his teeth with determination and decided that he would definitely stand by them, no matter what.
There were just 29 days to go, but for a second, he froze as he tried to figure out just what he was supposed to do right now.
First, he asked the system whether there were any pending messages, and sure enough, there was one.
The number of people who could even send a message directly to him was very small, and everyone must have known that he would be busy recovering from having his body chopped off. They were right - he was recovering, but thanks to the system, he felt as if everything was normal, even though only his head remained of the Peak Champion level Fighter body that he had developed with so much effort.
After checking on the recovery and making sure that everything was going well, he checked the message, and was quite startled to see that it was from two women who meant the world to him.
"We need to talk."
That was it, and it was said at the same time by two lovely voices, which were, for some reason, failed with reproach.
Smacking his forehead, Daneel realized that he had made a major mistake by not spending time with these two queenly ladies after such a harrowing experience. He even felt guilty when he thought about Xuan, as he knew that she must still have been recovering from the ordeal that she had had to go through after waking up in the presence of the Basilisk.
The prophecy that had led the basilisk to help him must definitely have been very taxing on her. Although Daneel had induced it, he had had no option to make it easier for her, as it wouldn"t have been authentic if he had made any attempt to do so.